Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma goes GREEN. This is a place for Legal Aid staff to contribute to our firm-wide greening! Let us know what your office is doing, make a suggestion, comment on suggestions and generally pitch in on the effort.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Customers of Public Service Co. of Oklahoma, a subsidiary of American Electric Power, may soon have new options for the purchase of renewable energy as the result of an agreement reached with NextEra Energy Resources for the long-term purchase of 99 megawatts of renewable energy from a wind farm currently under construction near Minco.

If approved by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, a portion of the electricity generated at the Minco wind farm will be set aside specifically for PSO customers who want to purchase more of their power from renewable resources.

“There is an interest on the part of some PSO customers to be able to have a certain portion, if not all, of their energy coming from renewable energy resources,” said Kathy Champion, PSO’s consumer programs manager. “The addition of this new wind energy resource will provide PSO the opportunity to address our customers’ preferences to have more electric energy from renewable resources and will allow individual customers to decide how much renewable energy will be used to serve their loads.”

PSO is proposing a voluntary program that allows customers to designate the amount of their energy requirement that will be provided by renewables. The program will allow customers to buy their preferred number of fixed kilowatt-hours blocks. Every block would equal 100 kWh. Customers may elect to purchase from a minimum of one block a month up to a maximum of 100 percent of their monthly use.

Champion said PSO chose this format because of the certainty block pricing gives to customers, ease in pricing and billing under the plan and ability to track the results of the program.

The program will also be the first in Oklahoma to have the Green-E certification. Green-E is a nationally recognized, independent certification process that provides, among other things, certainty to the claims of the green utility price offering.

“PSO believes offering a Green-E certified program will add credibility to our program, and we are excited to be the first in Oklahoma to pursue this certification,” Champion said.